I scheduled a fill

I was up another two pounds today for some reason. I'm really not happy about that. I'm 4 pounds higher than my lowest weight of 214. I was hoping to see it go down today, not up. So, I called Dr. Metz's office and scheduled an appointment for a fill next Friday. I'm definitely able to eat more than I probably should be, so hopefully this will help kickstart the weight loss again.

I got my exercise done today, but it was much harder because I did it this afternoon. It's so much easier when I do it first thing in the morning. Tomorrow I'll be exercising about 5:30 a.m., so that's pretty much first thing.

I prepared a whole bunch of grilled chicken today on my friends' grill. I marinated thirteen chicken breasts in teriyaki and they turned out great! I'm going to freeze some of it to use for meals over the next while. We're also eating it for dinner tonight. Yay for convenient food that is healthy.

Week 4

I started my fourth week of Couch to 5 K this morning. It is so much harder than week 3. But I'm up to the challenge. Here's the workout:

Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:

• Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
• Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
• Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
• Walk 1/4 mile (or 2-1/2 minutes)
• Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
• Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
• Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)

So I jogged 1.5 miles today, broken up of course. Very cool!

My weight is giving me troubles. I dropped a couple of pounds during the week, but as of the official weigh in day, I've lost no pounds this week. I guess that's better than gaining. I think I must need a fill. I'm trying to decide if I should get it before the holidays or after. If I wait, I may gain some, if I don't, then I risk not being able to eat much holiday food, which might not be a bad thing. We'll see.

Edited to add: I was just looking over my weekly weight loss chart and it's interesting to see that I've been bouncing up and down for several weeks now, but the overall trend is downward. That is interesting and somewhat comforting.

I hit the floor!

And it's a good thing. :) Hit the Floor is the workout video I tried to do a few days ago and found it to be really hard. I was determined not to let it get the best of me. I asked my sweet husband to help me by sitting with the remote and helping me pause or back up where I needed to. He helped me make sure I was doing the moves as correctly as possible, given my strength level. It made such a difference having him here helping me. It was still really hard, but I didn't stare at the screen without trying on any of the moves this time. Thank you, Brad!

We took progress pictures again. Yesterday was my 8 month mark. What an amazing 8 months this has been. I will add the pictures to the slideshow and post a few others that we took yesterday as well. I'm wearing a woman's size 16 in these pictures. I hadn't realized I was down to that size, quite yet, but I am. I started in a 26/28.

Strength

I feel so blessed. As I was doing my run/walk this morning, I was so overwhelmed with gratitude for where I am. I really feel that the whole Lapband surgery and following changes I've been able to make has been a gift from God. I feel that the desire and ability to do this exercise so diligently and not lose motivation has been divinely given. I'm pleased with myself for the effort I've put forth, but more than that, I feel that the ability to do so has been from His strength. I have wanted to do these things before, but never before has it clicked like it's clicking now. I prayed for years that I could find a way to lose weight and get healthy. My prayers have been answered and I feel that I must give praise to Him for this amazing journey I'm on.

Biggest Loser: Families (spolier, don't read if you don't want to know.)

We finished TBL:Families episode for this week last night. I was so sad to see Jerry go, but so happy when the follow-up segment showed how far he has come. I truly want these people to get healthy and lose that weight. I think his daughter, Colleen is amazing and I loved how his perspective on who should stay really took into consideration that this could really change her life at her very young age.

I'm really enjoying this show. It's motivating. I want to see more differences in their bodies, but I know that will come.

Sparkpeople.com has a couple of very interesting articles about The Biggest Loser. The first one is highlighting the great things we can learn about weight loss from the show. The second one is to warn us of some of the unrealistic things about the show and how to avoid comparing ourselves to those situations.

Marching band ruined me for running

Well, sort of. I cannot run (or even walk for that matter)to music unless my feet are hitting the ground right on the beats. I attribute this to those four years of marching band. It's even so bad, that sometimes I feel like my feet are not on the right part of the beat, like the right foot should come down on the first beat of the measure, not the left. So I have to do an awkward skip to switch feet. Band geek, through and through, I suppose.

The reason this creates a problem is that I have to be very specific about which songs I can use on my MP3 player for my workout since the song essential controls how fast my feet move. Right now I am using Maroon 5 songs: I use one for the walking parts and the other one for the running parts. I'm not completely sick of them yet, but I have already made up my playlists for the next 3 weeks, just using those songs, so I very likely will be sick of them. But, as long as they are the right tempo for me, I'm glad to have them.

I'm back together with Mr. Scale

At least for this week. I didn't like my weekly weigh-in result, (+1 pound) so I asked Brad to leave the scale out. I'm glad I did because this morning I was down two from yesterday, with a new low weight of 89 pounds lost. I like that a lot.

The weight loss has sure slowed down since my 6 month mark. I want to just be patient about it and not stress too much. I know I'm living in a healthy manner and will continue to do so. I just hope that my body continues to shed the weight.

I'm on my third week of Couch to 5 K. This week the plan is:
Walk for 5 minutes
Then do the following two times through:
Run for 90 seconds
Walk for 90 seconds
Run for 3 minutes
Walk for 3 minutes


I didn't know if I was going to be able to handle running for 3 minutes, but I surprised myself at how strong I am. I even ran an extra set of 90 seconds because the workout ended before I was home.

I did a new T-tapp workout called Hit the Floor this morning. It totally kicked my butt. It was so hard. It's going to take a lot of trying before I'm strong enough to do it, but I sure could use some toning in my lower body, so hopefully I can work up to being able to do the workout properly. For now, I'll just do my best and yell at Teresa while I try to follow her moves. :)